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Ye Shall Know Them by Their Fruits

Here's an interesting article by David Sirota that gets at some of the longer-term goals of what we are doing here at Localprogress.

Today's permanent campaign aims to ensure that the recent surge in Democratic voter turnout becomes the foundation of a lasting political infrastructure for progressives, rather than a momentary boomlet of presidential election euphoria. That means "creating mechanisms for people to remain engaged in politics between elections," as Thomas Bates says. He co-founded Democrats Work, a nonprofit group whose mission was on display when 12 volunteers of varying ages gathered last week to prepare dinner for residents at a Denver homeless shelter. The participants were not just giving back to their city — they were becoming Democratic Party activists.

"Lots of folks want to do community service but are not political," says Erin Egan, who runs the 500-member Colorado branch of Democrats Work. "But when they volunteer with us they see the Democratic Party's values and often become committed political volunteers."

...

"People only see the Democratic Party at election time, and that has to change," says Mark Brewer, the Michigan Democratic chairman who, along with New York party officials, is employing Blue Tiger's methods.
In the forgotten corners of both states, Blue Tiger sponsors food drives, roadside cleanups and computer training seminars — all under the banner of the Democratic Party.

Something important got lost in the furor over Obama's recent "elitism" gaffe. However awkwardly, he was only raising fairly basic and accepted issues, of the sort that Thomas Frank explored in What's the Matter with Kansas. The basic question that book explored was why the economic losers of the past few decades in rural and Rust Belt America were stubbornly voting for conservatives on cultural issues, when this seemed like it was very much against their economic interests to do so. What was interesting is that Obama was reaching toward taking that argument an important extra step, in noting that it's not just that rural and working class voters have been hoodwinked into voting on cultural issues by the right, but that the left have abdicated their own responsibilities in terms of doing anything meaningful to make it in their economic or class interest to vote for or identify with us in the first place.

The dirty secret here is that it may well be rational for people who live in the Rust Belt to vote on cultural issues when no tangible help has been forthcoming to cushion the blows of NAFTA and globalization. And it's rational for rural people to see the left and the Democrats as not caring about their interests when we don't actually do much of anything in or for those communities as they slowly disintegrate for two generations and more. To the extent that anyone does do anything, it has often been conservative evangelical churches that have filled the civic void, and that has likely been an important element of their growth and success in the last 25 years or so. Unless and until we actually embody and promote our values locally in ways that tangibly help communities, all of our talk about being on the side of the little guy and against economic inequality is just that. Talk.

So, our idea is both to facilitate the efforts of other progressive groups like the above-mentioned to organize and do tangible good in their local communities, and to be one of those ongoing efforts in our own right. We'll work to introduce the sorts of technology and knowhow that are vital to success in the 21st Century information economy, and to use both of those to reinforce and expand nascent efforts to rebuild civic and community life. Hopefully, slowly but surely, we can get back to the point where liberals and progressives are leading their local communities all around the country in the day-to-day fight for opportunity, equality, prosperity, and all of the other democratic values we claim to represent and hold dear.
Posted by jddunn on 04/17/2008 @ 4:33PM